Jewel Basin sale trimmed down

The state will proceed with a proposed timber sale near the Jewel Basin, but the size of the sale has been cut by more than half.

The sale drew fire from some environmental groups who claimed it would impact aesthetics near the Broken Leg and Crater Notch trails. The trails run from the Jewel Basin Road through state lands before heading up the mountainside into the hiking area.

The state has taken pains to mitigate concerns, said Dave Poukish, unit manager for the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.

The sale has been trimmed from its original 100 acres to about 48 acres, and logging will take place in the winter months when damage to the ground will be minimized, Poukish said.

The sale was also reduced because of accessibility issues — the reduced sale size means no new roads are needed.

The harvest would target dead Douglas fir trees killed by Douglas fir beetles. The sale would leave about 8 to 10 trees per acre. That area has about 20,000 to 30,000 board feet of timber per acre, Poukish said.

The original plan drew fire from the Swan View Coalition, which claimed that the sale would impact the landscape for decades, even if the trees were dead.

“No matter how careful the job, using feller-bunchers and grapple skidders to remove trees on these steep hillsides will damage the character of these trail experiences for decades to come,” Swan View Coalition chairman Keith Hammer said in a letter to area newspapers last month.

Poukish said the project will undergo a National Environmental Policy Act review.

The sale dovetails in with harvests on nearby F.H. Stoltze Land & Lumber Co. lands adjacent to the state lands. Stoltze would purchase the state timber, as it has the only access to it. The state owns about 2,500 acres of contiguous land in the area.